


we've gotta let go of all of our ghosts

by for_within_the_hollow_crown



Series: drift back to me (I’ll do the same) [9]
Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-30
Updated: 2017-07-30
Packaged: 2018-12-08 20:08:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,595
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11653818
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/for_within_the_hollow_crown/pseuds/for_within_the_hollow_crown
Summary: "It's been such a long time, who knows what you think of me now," she said, smiling softly at him."I think." He stopped. "I think that I'm very glad seeing you doing so well."





	we've gotta let go of all of our ghosts

**Author's Note:**

> Kinda inspired by [this manip](http://memorizingthedigitsofpi.tumblr.com/post/163504729022/consider-this-image-a-prompt-and-write-me-a-story) by memorizingthedigitsofpi
> 
> Unbeta'd.

[London 1919]

 

Fitz was waiting outside the house Daisy had been sharing with some other girls - indistinct faces and short names he had long forgotten - ever since her first arrival to London all those years ago, tapping his fingertips against his leg in boredom and anticipation. A small room with just the bare minimum in it that she had shown him proudly one afternoon after they had taken tea together in her kitchen, and an even smaller living space cramped with  clothes horses and washed and dried clothes that were gathering in a pile on an ironing board. It was nothing much and yet more preferred to the Simmons' London house that had, at the time, been offered to Daisy as accommodation; it gave her an even bigger independence than the one that living away from home provided and allowed her to move in complete freedom, do as she pleased with no one from the Simmons family having a say in regards of her actions and lifestyle. Above all, Fitz suspected, it was the idea of having something that was hers and hers alone, paid with her own money and chosen by her.

Around him, London looked bleak. An infinite sea of grey and smog lifting itself between the buildings and into the air in an already dreary January afternoon. Cars passing down the road splashed the water from the puddles that had yet to dry and whose surfaces were crisp and in some points iced, onto the pavement - darker spots that would leave behind slippery surfaces. The clouds gathering, the sky slowly getting darker and darker and the afternoon light getting dimmer. Part of him firmly believed that he would never get used to it and yet it would have been a lie on his part to say that whenever he was home he didn't miss the sound of heels on the pavement - despite the ugliness that the city had in winter, there was something fascinating about it, something about its liveliness and constant motion that always dragged him in.

Besides, how much of the idyllic connotation that he gave to his past and Yorkshire were actually there? Fitz couldn't tell, but he had come to the conclusion upon visiting Yorkshire back in November, that his memories of the place were romanticised - nothing there was as he remembered it to be and he had found himself to be a stranger in a place he once had been part of. It was true, he supposed, that the war had changed everything, that the world before had been nothing but a dream and that the events of the past four years had stained it forever. Wasn't that what Jemma herself had told him in August nineteen fourteen, that it was as if they had lived in a dream for years and the time had finally come to go back to the real world?

Their lives now were as real as they could get. Every illusion was gone along with the feeling of being untouchable, above everyone else, futures ahead of them. Bright young things who had known nothing about anything, who had discovered themselves all but invincible and free, who had finally been caught up with reality of things. The golden illusion had been dismantled, the cracks in it getting bigger and bigger until nothing but truth remained and the truth was that they had all played with each other like puppets, masked indifference had turned against them, objectives had been revealed and they had been met with the cold realization that their lives were intertwined with that of others and with society, fingers could not be pointed anymore so as not to take any blame on oneself.  But it was war that had ultimately given the final touch, that had changed all the cards on the table bringing them all to a whole new world. They were a lost generation with broken dreams and spirits whose ideals had been shattered.

Fitz remembered being nothing but a child and looking forward to the new century, naively wishing for it to be a kind one. He had blabbered about it for weeks to his mother - the delicious and intriguing idea of it swirling in his head at every hour of the day. They were moving to the twentieth, that itself was impressing, but even more so for he had decided that it would be the century of healing, the one that would distance him forever from the time spent with his father. It would be jolly well fine and the past, so different, would appear as a foreign land where things were done differently.  And in some ways it was different, quite different indeed, and he couldn't see himself as the same, but not for the better. It wasn't just him, though, it was everyone - strangers on the streets, Hunter, Bobbi, Will and his death - places were filled with desolation, lack of plans and means to go back to the real world. They were stumbling in the dark, lost, and he had it much better than many others that was easy to admit. It would be the years of rebuilding society and relationships, trying to put things into place once more and find a way to brave the storm and survive the aftermath.

There was interesting duality, Fitz had noticed, between the private sphere and the bigger picture and he had made it up to himself that he would let go of all the ghosts and start again, try again and act upon feelings. He and Daisy were talking again, with much more frequency than before, no questions asked and no apologies needed - they had each other's back again, and how easy it had been to fall into an old routine never quite forgotten. They had blamed it on life and on moving in different circles, he had his friends and she had hers and it was alright, and laughed about before deciding to go out for tea and chat about everything and nothing. And he had gone to Will Daniels' funeral uncaring for how it would look, moved by real grief and all grudges long forgotten - that, perhaps, had taken even more courage.

The door opened and closed with a thud as the lock closed, and Fitz looked up. Expecting to find Daisy, seeing Jemma came as a surprise; it was unexpected but bound to happen, he supposed, for Daisy was friends with both of them and the likelihood of paths crossing higher than imagined. They looked at each other, studying the person in front of them with hesitation, curiosity and disbelief, and memories of Will's funeral flashed by in his memory - those feeble moments of restored friendship backed up by nothing much at all, and the neutrality that had soon settled between them yet again leaving no space for conversation or comfort. He dared not to speak.

"Fitz! Daisy says she'll come in a minute, time to put on her coat and hat," said Jemma as she walked down the steps and all but jumped down the last two - feet graciously hitting the pavement, balance never lost. It was the most Jemma-like thing he could see her do and there was something reassuring in seeing that the amused smile on her face - that half raised corner and smug expression - was still the same as the one she had while doing the exact same thing in Yorkshire.

"Fancy seeing you here."

"Not so much, I'd say. Daisy had some documents she still had to deliver to The Sketch and since I'm on my way there, I thought I'd spare her the journey," she explained, raising her briefcase in demonstration.

"Ah, yes, I think she mentioned something about it."

"Well, now you won't have to make your journey longer. Honestly, I have no idea how she got this far given that she's as much of a slob as she was as a child." Jemma paused. "Though she is a good writer and The Sketch would miss out if they hadn't hired her. You've read some of her articles, haven't you?"

"Back in Yorkshire. And I've bought the paper a couple of times, there were some pretty interesting cover stories throughout the years. Will you join us for lunch?"

"I'm afraid not. Daisy just asked me the same question, but I'm meeting Lavinia for lunch and then I've got to go back to work - thus the documents."

He wanted to joke about her avoiding him but quickly decided otherwise. It felt out of place and, given the fragile territory they were walking on, it could have started an argument. There was a reason behind all their actions and maybe, perhaps, probably, avoiding each other worked just fine - after all they had gone through four years without ever really bumping into each other - but those times seemed long gone.

I've seen you and Will at Piccadilly two years ago, he wanted to tell her, and for a moment thought about crossing the street and say hello. Would that do as explanation? Hunter had commented on him going to the funeral - well formed and unfair sentences that Fitz had at the time pretended not to hear - and asked him whether he would have tried to reach out if Will had survived the war. Would he? The answer was a sincere yes. Yes, because grudges had long faded away. Yes, because he missed his friendship with Jemma. Yes, because it was time to let go of the ghosts of the past and move on. Whether or not their friendship would or could resume, dialogue and apologies were needed on both sides and had been years due. He also wanted to tell Jemma that he had not gone to the funeral for any other reason but pay his respects to Will and that the feelings that had led him there and the words that he had told her were all sincere. But how, when he didn't have the words for it?

"On a Sunday?" he finally settled for.

"On a Sunday. It's... We're currently rearranging the offices and taking on new staff, and I'm in the midst of moving Will's things out. It's a mess, why he felt the need to keep half of his belongings in his office is way beyond me. But it's time to do so if not months overdue, now more than ever there's no reason to keep them there."

An exaggerate picture of it popped into his mind. He remembered Jemma packing up for Oxford and the chaos that it had ensued and now couldn't help but thinking of the same scenario only worse. Her own words must have been an exaggeration themselves, maybe he knew nothing about Will, but Fitz doubted that he had kept literally half of his belonging in his office back at the paper. Yet there she was, Jemma sitting on the floor with empty shelves behind her and sheets of paper all over the floor - a sea of books and notebooks, old copies of The Sketch perhaps - with strains of hair framing her face, holding a ring binder close to her chest and looking at the room in front of her with an equal amount of desperation and frustration. She wouldn't know from where to start, what to bring back home, what to throw out and what to keep there - a string of profanities leaving her mouth.

Laughter bubbled up at the back of his throats and came out despite his better attempts to hold it back.

"I'm sorry," he said, trying to regain some composure.

"What's so funny?"

"I was merely trying to picture the scene."

"Oh, I'd probably do the same thing, but where would be the fun in that? However, I am pretty sure that it isn't half as bad as when I moved to Oxford, so there's that."

"Jemma?"

"Yes?"

"May I ask how you're doing? After, you know-"

She nodded. "The shock wore off and I carry on, we all do. It's taking some time, but I'm getting used to the thought of it, of never seeing Will ever again. I mean, there's no way out of it anymore, everyone has come back already and, were he alive, he'd be at the flat with me." Jemma paused. "I don't thing things could go back to normal quicker than this."

"No one would expect it to pass quickly, you to just gloss over it. How is Tom?"

"He wants his best friend back as much as I want my husband back, both things we cannot have. Though Pratt has retired, to open a tea shop down in the village apparently, so he keeps himself busy and quite busy indeed. We'll get there eventually, all of us, the Daniels included, as slowly as necessary."

He watched Jemma fidget with her hands and nervously playing with her wedding ring, turning the small band of gold back and forth on her finger.

"Thank you, for having come to the funeral and for having been there when I- for not leaving," she said without looking up.

"I was unsure, really, but the idea of not going felt wrong," Fitz replied in all honesty.

When Daisy had delivered the news of Will's death he had been caught by surprise by his own feelings; if hate and anger had longed washed away at least he would have expected indifference - certainly not caring. What had Jemma told him? That her minds was so filled with memories of Will that it was unbearable? He knew the feeling well, his mind in the days following the announcement had been turned to the past, those last two weeks of summer when Will came at the abbey. The dinners, the voices and the laughter. The teasing banter between them all and Daisy not so subtly inquiring how to apply at The Sketch. Will playing the piano. And then he had been told about the funeral and thought about not going, he couldn't possibly, but that decision had provided an uncomfortable and irking sensation that faded into guilt in the late hours of the night. They had known each other once and could have been friends, the memories of the time in Yorkshire looked at him accusingly.

"Your choice. For what it's worth it, I'm glad you came and didn't let what happened between us all stand in the way. I wouldn't have wanted you not going because of me and the choices I made all those years ago."

"Why would I?"

"I don't know. It's been such a long time, who knows what you think of me now," she said, smiling softly at him.

Many things which one day he would hopefully tell her. But that was neither the time nor the place to start having such a conversation, it was too long and too needed to reduce it to a quick exchange of sentences - half muttered apologies and incomplete explanations of all words and actions that had led to the summer of nineteen fourteen - nor could they pretend that nothing had happened between them,  that they hadn't caused each other a great deal of heartbreak and carried an equal amount of blame. They couldn't go back nor could they, in that moment, move forward - stuck in a quagmire with no way out of it,  there was, however, space for a future confrontation for they weren't being pulled back to any state of neutrality, the current truce was no longer slipping away from them.

"I think." He stopped. "I think that I'm very glad seeing you doing so well."

**Author's Note:**

> Ring binders were patented in 1886 by Friedrich Soennecken (who also registered a patent that same year for his hole punch. Louis Leitz later introduced the "finger hole" on the side of the binder to aid removal from crowded shelves. Another design for ring binders was invented in 1889 by Andreas Tengwall who used four rings, in two paired sets. William P. Pitt obtained the patent for a 3-ring binder on December 20 1904.


End file.
